


Beholden

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Dom/sub Undertones, Exhibitionism, Flirting, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Pining, No Plot/Plotless, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Power Dynamics, Sexual Fantasy, Topping from the Bottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-09 10:50:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12274872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Niles has a lot of things to be grateful for." Leo has already given Niles more than Niles ever dreamed of having, but that doesn't stifle his generosity any more than it quences Niles's desire.





	Beholden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Claws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claws/gifts).



> There's a very minor deviation from canon here regarding how Niles lost his right eye; but it seemed a worthwhile exchange, for the end result :)

Niles has a lot of things to be grateful for.

His life, first and foremost. That was forfeit as soon as his sometimes-comrades turned their backs on him in exchange for their own escape, as soon as he was left as a decoy to buy them a chance at freedom. Niles can hardly hold that against them, cowardly though it was; he knows he would have done the same as them in a heartbeat, maybe faster still, if he had been given the chance at it. He is not a good man, has never been a good man; betrayal comes easy to his kind, and when he realized the knife of trust had slipped in his grip to cut his own lifeline shorter than he expected, well, he was hardly going to complain. It was what he deserved, what fate would have served to him sooner if he hadn’t dedicated himself to dodging the blow of justice; easy enough to surrender to it, when it came in the form of an avenging angel clad in armor and shadow, with only the glow of his golden hair to draw Niles’s gaze to the haughty tilt of his head. Niles had felt surrender in him even then, had been ready to drop to his knees even before the lance-quick blow of the attacker’s first strike sliced through his brow and right eye with all the speed of a shadow flickering over Niles’s vision. Niles’s knees hit the floor as fast as half his vision vanished to shadow, and he was bowing his head as quickly, smiling in resigned surrender as rapidly as he could frame voice to the request for a quick death, for the speedy end he knew even then he had no right to request.

He should have died then. It would have been a boon just to have the whip-quick lash of those shadows take him, to have his remaining sight and life extinguished as quick as a candle guttering out to a careless breath. But the attacker -- Prince Leo, as Niles knows him now -- had given Niles his life back, without bothering with any such trivialities as justice or logic, and more than that: he gave Niles a purpose, a heading to guide the path of his life like Niles had never had before. Niles thinks he would have loved him for that alone, even without the lure of that sadistic smirk or the bright of that golden hair; by the time he learned the taste of Leo’s blood during the ceremony to become and official royal retainer, Niles was ready to offer his heart to his lord and master alongside his loyalty and his obedience, if Leo wished it of him.

There’s more even, after that. His life, yes, and a meaning for that same; that would be enough, would be more than what Niles knows he deserves, more than he has ever even thought to hope for. But Leo grants him a title, and a place of honor, of more respect than Niles has ever known in addition to the basic necessities of survival, of clothing and food and warmth that Niles has always had to steal or fight or kill for, before. Niles appreciates all of it, adds every portion twice over to the already impossible debt he owes to his lord, until he knows he will never be able to repay it, until he is absolutely certain death will find him before he has paid back even a fraction of what Leo has given him. It’s a strangely comforting thought, in its own way; as if every casual gift Leo makes, every offhand addition to Niles’s life that a prince’s whim can offer is another thread to tie them closer together, to bind Niles’s heart the tighter with that thread that leads straight to Leo’s delicate fingertips.

Niles is grateful to it all: for his life, for what paltry sum that is worth, and more for the chance at redemption, for the fixed point by which to set his existence. For the clothing, and the food, and all the innumerable conveniences that are to Leo such an afterthought, that have been to Niles such a struggle; and simply for the chance to exist in Leo’s shadow, to linger at his shoulder and know that wherever he goes, Niles will be permitted, will be expected to follow, without any need for explanation or defense. Niles is grateful for that, for the opportunity to cradle the beat of his heart into rhythm with Leo’s unquestioned, uncommented; he thinks he might be more grateful to that than for almost anything else that Leo has seen fit to grant him.

And it is  _almost_  anything; because above all, above everything else, Niles is grateful for the privacy.

He’s never had occasion to taste such before. The streets are full of shadows but never of anything like a space to call his own; corners are for claiming, open as soon as someone leaves and squabbled over with each new return. He won his way through his past life, by tooth and claw and ragged blade, but all the fighting in the world never bought him more than a half-quiet corner amidst the rabble like himself, or half a dirty tent shared with twice over as many bodies. Niles has never known a home, never known more than temporary shelter for an hour, or an evening, or a day, if he’s lucky; and it’s that that Leo offers him, as thoughtlessly as he offered back Niles’s life, as easily as he claimed the other’s eye. Leo gave Niles an open door, and the weight of a key, and a “These are to be yours” with an elegant flip of his hand that Niles would hate on anyone else, that Niles aches for when it’s framed in Leo’s pale skin; and Niles has a home, now, a few small rooms with a collection of furniture that is  _his_ , as much his own as the space they fill. It’s odd to have so much, stranger still to have a place he can return to; and above all, beyond everything else there is that Leo has given him, it is strange to have a lock to turn behind him.

Niles loves that lock. He likes the weight of the key around his neck, or in his pocket, likes the cool slide of the polished metal against his fingers; and he likes the weight of the door, the way it slides into place and latches shut even before he turns over the mechanism to keep out any visitors, to hole himself away with nothing and no one but himself for company. He looks forward to that moment with the span of every day, savoring the expectation of it with all the sweet purr of anticipation in the back of his thoughts, until by the time he gets there all he can do is urge the door shut behind him, and lean back to press his shoulders to the weight of it, and shut his eye with the surge of relief that runs through him at finally being alone with his indulgences.

He doesn’t even bother with the bed today. Sometimes he can make it across the room; sometimes he takes the time to strip himself out of his clothes with deliberate languor, savouring the feel of the fabric sliding across his skin until he’s stripped bare, until he can lay himself across the sleek soft of expensive sheets and imagine them to be someone else’s, imagine them to be princely silk instead of the smooth linen that is as much as even a prince’s retainer merits. Niles has no illusions about the details of reality; he knows his place, however much he may enjoy alluding to his own desires in the structure of the jokes that Leo lets slide uncommented upon. Leo is above him, over him, too impossibly distant for someone like Niles to dare to touch; he had sensed it even that first day, when Leo’s entrance was heralded by a sweep of shadow curling down the hallway like fast-racing smoke to tear away Niles’s vision from him as fast as it stole his vague thoughts of resistance. But Leo had reached down anyway, had pulled Niles up to life when even death at his hand was a boon too much and too selfish to hope for; and now Niles has him every day, the gold of that hair far more priceless than all the wealth he used to dream of owning. He would sleep in a stable for the honor of that, would crawl in the dirt for so much as a glimpse of Leo’s face; and instead he has the opulence of a bed, and the warmth of his own quarters, and Leo’s presence and voice and trust every day, burdening him with more riches than he can possibly stand. It’s no wonder, then, that he rarely makes it to the deep soft of that feather-stuffed mattress, to the delicate drag of those sheets over his scarred skin; it’s all he can manage to make it in the door, to slide to sit against the wall alongside it as he reaches to undo the loop of his belt even before unfastening the weight of his cloak from around his neck. Niles opens his pants one-handed, flipping the leather of the belt free of the buckle and tugging open the laces at the same time he’s freeing himself from the burden of his coat and letting it fall to puddle behind him atop the weight of his cloak; until by the time he’s pushing the give of his pants free of the heat of his skin, all he has left on him besides is the loose fall of his shirt, and the weight of his boots, and the strap of his everpresent eyepatch tangling in his hair. Niles lets his head tip back against the wall, and shuts his eye to the distraction of his silent room; and then he closes his hand around himself, fitting his fingers to the flushed heat of his cock, and as he begins to stroke his imagination rises in time with the desire in his veins.

It’s always Leo Niles thinks of. There used to be others in his fantasies, he remembers vaguely, from the time before, when the most he had to dream of was a full belly and a warm bed; but since that first meeting Niles’s imagination always slides to golden hair, and a haughty expression, and the line of narrow shoulders thrown back under the weight of a cloak that fits them as if made to rest atop them. Niles could imagine other lovers better suited to his position, more apt to his station; but it’s his imagination, after all, and he has made too much of a habit of indulgence to stop now. So it’s Leo he imagines, standing over him while Niles kneels against cool stone, or trembles against shadowy bonds, or bows his head in absolute surrender. He thinks of Leo’s fingers in his hair, on his shoulder, trailing against the line of his throat; and he feels himself groan, feels the resonance of the sound pour up his throat like fire, like an earthquake coursing through his veins at the mere thought of Leo’s fingertips drawing across his skin. Leo could push in against Niles’s shirt, fitting those elegant fingers under the fall of the fabric to drag across the other’s skin; or up, maybe, pressing his palm to the side of Niles’s face and digging fingers into his hair. Niles has his own hand uplifted, is pressing the bow-calluses of his own fingers in against his scalp in imitation of his imagination; his hand is too rough, his movements too forceful, but it hardly matters when his imagination is alight with this most favored fuel. In his imagination it’s Leo’s fingers, graceful in his hair even as Niles’s grip tightens to a fist, even as he pulls against the strands to imagine that hold tipping his head back, drawing him to an obedience akin to that Niles draws from his preferred weapon, to that Leo himself finds in the smooth spill of the shadows he has molded to his will; and Niles’s fingers catch at tension, his nails dragging against the strap of his eyepatch, and his breath catches in his throat as his fingers slip under the line of it.

It’s easy to slide the cord free. It’s a narrow thing anyway, even tangled into the fall of Niles’s hair as it ever is by this time of the night; if Niles caught at one of the loose ends he could free the bow holding it in place with a single tug, could let the weight of the patch slip free and over his shoulder as simply as thought. But even like this, with his fingers gaining purchase under the line of it instead of working the knot holding it tight loose, it’s an easy matter, just an angle of his wrist, and the force of his arm, and the familiar pressure slides up and off Niles’s hair to topple to the floor beside him to be forgotten. Niles’s heart is racing, his skin prickling with heat as if this has stripped him to far more exposure than simply unfastening his clothes could do, and when he lifts his hand again it’s with his fingers trembling, with his touch uncertain and careful as he skims the weight of it across his cheekbone, as he lets the friction of his fingers draw up and towards the shadowy hollow that used to house the other half of his sight.

There’s no resistance, of course. It used to be a vaguely sickening feeling, to have that absence of weight where there should be something beneath the empty lid that spends all its time covered by the weight of the eyepatch; but now Niles imagines he can feel the shadows there instead, wonders if he can collect the heavy weight of Leo’s magic like velvet at his fingers, and when his fingertips graze against that empty space now it only stirs greater heat into his veins, only tips his head the farther back against the wall behind him as he gasps through a breath that goes to a moan as his cock jerks in his hand, as his blood flares to life in his veins. It’s Leo’s mark on him, the proof of Leo’s effect scarring his body to match the brand left on his soul; and Niles imagines, now, that there’s still some fraction of Leo’s sorcery yet clinging to the inside of his lashes, imagines that there’s some fragment of the other’s influence still pooling in the space his initial attack made for itself, as if to press the mark of Leo’s touch into the space of Niles’s body, to leave him marked for the other’s use as surely as the taste of blood at Niles’s lips drew a vow of loyalty from him. It’s a heady thought, the weight of Leo’s touch on him, the force of Leo’s magic spilling into Niles’s veins to wander darkness-soft through him with every beat of his heart, and Niles can feel his skin going sticky with sweat, can feel the weight of his cock swelling heavy against his grip as fast as he moves. He has his palm pressing hard against the space of his missing eye, his fingers gripping in against his hair as if to hold the memory of Leo’s magic in against him; and in his imagination it is Leo, himself, Leo’s fingers dragging at his scalp and Leo’s hold urging his head back so he can see the expression on Niles’s face, so he can watch pleasure rise into the crest of inevitability as Niles’s hips jerk, as his hand tightens to a fist against his own length.

“Leo,” he pants, his voice loud enough that he can hear the pleading on his tone even over the roaring in his ears, as heat rises high against his spine with the threat of breaking, with the promise of satisfaction. “Oh, god,  _Leo_ ” and his hand is speeding, his thighs are trembling, Niles can feel his whole body straining up towards the friction of his grip working over himself, can feel his consciousness drifting out of the present reality and towards the illusion of his own imagination, towards the glow of candlelit gold and the drag of a tolerant smirk. Niles imagines Leo’s hand sliding over his cheek, imagines Leo’s thumb fitting against that scar of his own making like he’s admiring the work of some master craftsman; and he can’t hold himself back, he can’t stop himself, he’s going to--

“ _Niles_.” A clear voice, crisp and carrying the expectation of obedience under the tone, calling in assumption of answer rather than uncertainty. Niles shuts his mouth hard, pressing his lips tight around the name still swelling at the inside of his chest; but that tone isn’t judgmental, it’s just a call for him, a summons given the weight of an order just by the identity of the speaker. He can hear the sound of footsteps approaching down the hallway, the precise thud of Leo’s steps landing at the stone as the other draws closer to the far side of the shut door. “ _Niles, where are you?_ ”

Niles opens his mouth carefully and shudders an exhale as quiet as he can make it. He ought to stop now, ought to rush himself to tidiness and emerge to answer his lord’s demands; if it were any other moment he thinks he would, thinks he would drop his own pleasure in absolute surrender to Leo’s needs. But he can feel strain prickling up the whole of his spine, can feel the thrum of his orgasm hovering on the very horizon of his thoughts. It hasn’t retreated in terror at the sound of Leo’s voice; it has only dug claws into him like it’s answering the call of his name in its own way. Niles is so close, he’s all but hovering on the cusp of satisfaction; another minute, another handful of seconds, and he can find his relief with the backdrop of Leo’s voice shouting his name on the other side of a locked door. He ought to stop, true; and he presses his lips together, and softens his breathing to near-silence, and he goes on.

“ _Niles!_ ” Sharper now, closer; Leo is approaching Niles’s door, those steps are echoing closer with every stroke of Niles’s hand. Leo doesn’t sound panicked, doesn’t have the edge of alarm on his voice that would be enough to stall the heat in Niles’s veins with the chill of concern; more curious, like he noticed the other’s absence and is most interested in seeking him out to satisfy his own wondering than anything else. Niles blinks at the ceiling of his bedroom, and thinks about Leo wanting him, about Leo desiring his presence; and his hand resumes its steady pace, falling back into a smooth rhythm as his lashes flutter, as his breathing catches on the renewed surge of arousal in him. Leo’s voice is ringing in his ears, Leo’s touch is clinging to his imagination, and Niles tips his head back hard against the wall, and softens his breathing as quiet as it will go, and he lets his hand speed, lets his pace increase in time with the sound of Leo’s footsteps on the other side of the door. His skin is prickling with possibility, with the opportunity provided by circumstance: coming with Leo’s voice in his ears, with Leo’s presence a few feet away, with nothing but the weight of that door between them. The idea is dizzying, intoxicating, Niles can feel his attention scattering with every overheated inhale he manages around the thought of it; and then there’s the sound of a knock, a hand rapping on the side of the door just at Niles’s elbow, and “Niles?” so near Niles imagines Leo is right there next to him, stepping forward to look down at the other dropped heavy to the floor with the weight of his own desire. Niles is panting for air, his lungs straining over every inhale as his heartbeat roars in his ears, as his hand speeds up over himself; and then there’s the sound of a handle turning, the  _click_  of a latch giving way, and Niles can feel his breath rush out of him on a knot of sudden terror, this time, as he remembers dropping to the floor, stepping into the privacy of his room and the comfort of the walls around him, and  _not_  turning the lock to remove interruption. His head turns, his eye going wide with panic as he looks up; but it’s too late, the door is already coming open, and then Leo’s stepping forward and into the room and there’s no chance for Niles to do anything at all. The door catches at the edge of his fallen coat, the friction obstructing the swing of the action and drawing Leo’s gaze at once; and Niles is left gaping horrified shock up at the man he has sworn his life to as Leo’s eyes flicker up over the picture he’s making of himself to settle, inevitably, on the grip of Niles’s hand against the flushed length of his cock.

“ _Leo_ ,” Niles says, intending it to be an exclamation, a breath of terrified recognition; but arousal undoes his intention, the weight of heat in his throat too much to overcome when he can feel pleasure pulsing just at the verge of relief through the whole of his body. The name comes out hot instead, low and weighted with shadows enough to match those that Leo wields so deftly, and Niles closes his mouth sharply but too-late to hold back the sound as Leo’s eyes jump to his, as Leo’s entire face colors crimson for a brief moment of embarrassment. Leo stares at Niles for a heartbeat, his lips parted and eyes wide and face red; and then he pushes hard against the door, throwing it open and stepping through at once, and when he turns it’s to slam it into place, thrusting it back against the frame as if he’s bringing all his battle-hardened force to bear on it. Niles flinches at the sound, at the vibration jolting through the wall behind him and straight into his shoulders like lightning grounding itself out; but Leo is shoving the lock into place without looking back at him, throwing the room into the actuality of the privacy Niles thought he had had, and Niles can feel his whole body prickle with the awareness of the situation: the privacy of his room, the weight of the world on one side and himself on the other; and Leo here, with him, inside the space of his bedroom by what looks like nothing but his own volition.

There’s complete silence for a moment. Leo’s fingers are still bracing at the lock of the door, his other hand is still pressing flush the weight of the wood before him. Niles doesn’t look away. He doesn’t think he can remember how to look at anything else. Finally Leo’s lashes dip, his gaze drops, and he casts the weight of his attention sideways through the shadow of his hair to catch and meet Niles’s unswerving attention.

“Do you have a particular objection to locks?” he asks, in an impressively level tone. His cheeks are still faintly flushed, still barely pink; Niles doesn’t think the color would show up on anyone’s skin but the ivory-smooth of Leo’s own, the pale that speaks to long days without sunlight as much as to his royal blood.

Niles presses his lips together and swallows deliberately. He can feel the motion work around the knot in his throat. “I just think a little exhibitionism can be fun now and then,” he manages. His voice is rougher than he means it to be, it drags hard in his throat instead of purring into the flirtatious lilt he prefers; but it’s hard to be coy when he’s trembling with the heat of near-orgasm and still has the unflagging evidence of his arousal braced tight in his grip.

Leo’s eyes flicker down, just for a moment. Niles’s throat tightens on a whimper; Leo’s lashes dip, his gaze comes back up to Niles’s face. They stare at each other for a breath; Leo still leaning against the door, his expression almost entirely hidden in shadow, and Niles still sprawled on the floor, his clothes scattered around him and a hand digging in against his hair in imitation of Leo’s own. He can see Leo’s gaze drag over his face, taking in the absence of his eyepatch via a tiny dip of dark lashes; Niles wonders if he looks as undone as he feels, if Leo can see the stripped-raw want Niles can feel shuddering through his veins as clearly as he can see the shadows he scarred permanently into the other’s face. Niles’s heart is racing, his breath is catching; and then Leo takes a breath, and says “Well?” with such a tone of expectation that it forces Niles’s thoughts to a single impossible conclusion at once.

Niles can feel his mouth come open, can feel his remaining eye widen on the first jolt of disbelief that goes through him. His mind leaps to an answer, his imagination supplies an instant interpretation for the set of Leo’s shoulders, for the casual command in his tone, for the shadows of attention in his eyes; but surely he must be mistaken, his logic must be dragged sideways by the effect of his own arousal, by the heat thrumming in him with such force that it’s inventing impossibilities, that it’s suggesting encouragement from those lips that Niles has spent too long dreaming of. It can’t be that Leo means what Niles thinks he does, can’t be that he’s really…

“What,” Niles manages, his voice dragging to gravel and not levelling even when he presses his lips together and clears his throat roughly. “My lord?”

Leo jerks his chin at Niles’s hand, his gaze flickering to the undone front of the other’s pants in a motion utterly unmistakable even as Niles feels his face heat with embarrassment enough to match even the burn of that entirely inappropriate arousal. Leo’s attention clings to him for a moment, sliding up over the curve of the other’s cock with an intention that dries Niles’s mouth, but when he speaks his voice is utterly level, as cool and composed as if he regularly walks in on his retainers pleasuring themselves.

“You were in the middle of something,” Leo says, his voice calm enough to catch Niles’s heart into his throat. “Go on.” His lashes dip, his gaze rises to meet Niles’s; and there’s something behind that familiar color, some shadowy intent that Niles can no more make sense of than he can resist the dominance it exudes. “A little exhibitionism, was it?”

Niles gapes at Leo for a long, long moment. He’s never before delayed in obeying one of Leo’s commands; but then, he’s never before had a command like this one. He can hear the words, can feel the demand in them prickle down his spine and ache in the heavy weight of his balls; but he can’t believe, can’t come to terms with a reality so terrifyingly, breathlessly close to his fantasies. He licks his lips and swallows hard, fighting his way back to coherency; it doesn’t help as much as he’d hoped, not with Leo’s eyes fixed so unswervingly on him. “My lord?”

A single gold eyebrow lifts, Leo’s chin tips up fractionally. “Must I repeat myself?” he asks; and Niles is moving without any more hesitation, his body reacting to the expectation in that icy tone before his mind can put logic to it. His fingers tighten, his arm flexes to pull up over himself; and over him Leo’s gaze drops, Leo’s attention skips down to track the movement of Niles’s hand. Niles is expecting revulsion, is expecting a reversal of that order as soon as he begins acting on it, as soon as Leo realizes what it is he’s doing; but Leo just presses his lips together, and crosses his arms tighter over his chest, and when he breathes it’s hard through his nose and not the hiss of disgust Niles was expecting. Niles keeps staring up at him, watching Leo watching him with his heart racing, with his entire body trembling with half-terrified arousal, with disbelieving desire; and then his hand slips, his hips jerk involuntarily, and Niles can see the way Leo’s shoulders tense, the way Leo’s mouth tightens, and a wholly new idea presents itself to him, an epiphany riding the heat surging through his body from the drag of his palm.

“Oh,” Niles gasps, “My lord;” and when Leo’s gaze jumps back to him he can see the color rising to the other’s cheeks, can see the cresting flush of heat spilling under the pale of the other’s skin like Leo’s expression is a mirror for Niles’s own. Niles huffs an exhale, sharp and hard on shock, and Leo ducks his head to look away at once; but Niles knows what he saw, even if he can hardly believe the truth of it, and the knowledge of that just flares the hotter in his veins. He tips his head back hard against the wall and shuts his eye to take a deep breath, an attempt to steady himself that is unmade before it’s begun; and then he tips his knees wider, and lets his hand slide down to press against the hollow space of the scar Leo gave him, and when he exhales this time he doesn’t make any attempt to hold back the moan of arousal that spills from his lips and into the strained silence of the room.

“God,” Niles groans, not sure if it’s an exclamation or a plea he’s offering; and he lets his imagination slide free of his grip, lets it drag into the shadowy familiarity of well-worn paths. His mind conjures up thoroughly detailed images -- Leo stripped bare and tied down to the span of Niles’s bed, Leo sprawling over the expanse of a throne while Niles kneels at his feet, Leo in a thousand ways, a thousand varieties of submission and dominance tangling together into Niles’s imagination. His cock jerks, his breathing catches; and Niles moves the faster, jerking haste over himself as his back curves him forward, as his hips tilt up like he’s making an offering of his arousal for Leo’s consideration. His fingers press against the strange emptiness at his missing eye, his touch weighting the space Leo claimed for his own; and there’s a sound, a whimper of an inhale from lips not Niles’s, and Niles opens his eye to come up from the haze of imagination.

His fantasies are thorough, complete and detailed in every facet he can make them; and they all disintegrate as soon as his vision focuses on Leo, every part of them swept aside by the unavoidable reality of Leo  _here_ , right now, standing alongside Niles with his arms crossed and his lips tight and his whole face glowing with arousal as he watches Niles pleasure himself to the thought of his prince. Niles can feel his chest tighten, can feel his mouth come open; and under his grip his cock twitches, at the base of his spine heat tightens to a knot of inevitability.

“Oh,” Niles hears himself moan, and his voice is unravelling, coherency evaporating from his throat as his hips come up, as he stares up at Leo watching him, at the focus of Leo’s eyes fixed on him. He’s panting for air, he can’t seem to get enough oxygen to fill his straining lungs; and Leo’s lips are parting, his expression giving way to heat enough that Niles doesn’t have to look down to see proof of the other’s arousal straining at his pants, not when he can see it so clear in the slack weight at Leo’s jaw and the heavy flutter of his lashes as he blinks. Niles’s fingers tighten, his shoulders tip back, and it’s as heat sweeps out and into him that his lips part, that “ _My lord_ ” drags itself from his throat like he’s pulling it up from the depths of his chest. Leo’s gaze jumps to his face, the weight of Leo’s attention fixes on Niles’s flushed expression; and Niles can feel everything in him give way at once, can feel the tension straining along his spine and under his grip snap like a bowstring set free by Leo’s eyes focusing on him. His head angles back, his mouth drops open, and pleasure surges through the whole of his body as if it’s being sent into him by the weight of Leo’s eyes. Niles can feel the helpless tremors of satisfaction wash over him, can feel each involuntary shudder course through his shoulders and crease at his forehead; and he lets them come, lets himself fall apart for what gratification the sight will offer Leo standing over him. He feels like he’s coming forever, like maybe he’ll spend the rest of his life here, trembling and panting with heat on the floor under Leo’s expectant gaze; but even the impossible length of this orgasm finally comes to an end, and Niles finally blinks the heat haze from his vision and tips his head to look at Leo again.

Leo is staring at him. He looks like he hasn’t moved in the whole time since he issued that order for Niles to continue, for Niles to finish what he started; his arms are still crossed, his feet are still set. But his shoulders are tipping in, very slightly, his body curving forward like he’s hunching in to protect the evidence of his own arousal, or maybe to hide it; as if there’s any way he can disguise his reaction, with his eyes lidded with the weight of shadows enough to swallow Niles whole right where he sits. Niles stares up into that gaze, feels himself laid far more bare than a mere lack of clothes could ever achieve; and then he lifts his hand from where it’s been resting against the last proof of Leo’s touch he’s had, and he gestures the other in closer without quite touching against the weight of those elegant clothes.

“No need to keep your distance, my lord.” Niles’s voice is still rough on heat, husky in the back of his throat with pleasure he doesn’t have to feign or control; he lets it drag over his words, lets the invitation come through with open sincerity. There’s no point in pretending coyness now, after all. “Everything here is yours for the having, if you wish it.”

Leo’s lips touch against each other, Leo’s throat works on a swallow; but when he lets his grip on his elbow go his fingers aren’t shaking, his hand is perfectly steady as he reaches out towards the tangle of Niles’s hair and that scar marking the empty space of the other’s missing eye. “Is it,” he says, and his voice is as steady as his touch skimming Niles’s forehead, as dark as the attention in those eyes still fixed on Niles’s face.

Niles lifts his chin, turning his head up to meet Leo’s touch like he’s turning towards the warmth of sunlight, like he’s begging for the weight of those fingers in action instead of in words.

“Of course it is,” he says, and he lets his eyelashes dip over his good eye, lets his vision fall to the soft weight of darkness as Leo’s fingers brush over the shadow on the other side of his face, as his throat works on a moan too hot on long-cherished relief to even find proper voice. “Don’t you recognize your mark on your own possessions, my lord?”

Niles can hear the sound of Leo’s exhale, can hear the huff of air spilling to heat from the other’s lips as Leo’s fingers draw over his skin, trailing heat in their wake. There’s the rustle of sound, the drag of expensive fabric sliding over itself; and then a touch at Niles’s shoulder, pressure pinning him to stillness, and Niles opens his eye and reaches up at one and the same time to catch Leo’s hips between his hands, to steady the other’s movement as Leo drops down to kneel over his lap. Niles’s hands fit into the dip of Leo’s waist, his sticky fingers settle into the texture of the other’s clothes like they were meant to be there; and then Leo’s knees are bracketing Niles’s hips, and Leo’s shoulders are shadowing Niles’s face, and when Niles lifts his chin to blink hazy-eyed up at the other Leo’s hands come up to push into his hair, to urge the weight of it back and free of his features. Leo’s eyes are darker still from this close up, they seem to swallow what light there is in the room; and Niles is lifting his chin without waiting to be urged, offering the part of his lips as quickly as Leo’s palms slide in and down to cup against his jawline and hold his head steady for the dip of the other’s head over him.

Leo’s mouth is warm. Niles had known it would be, has always thought of that in all his endless, uncounted fantasies: the heat like a flame, like a lightless burn scorching away his focus as quickly as it sinks into into his skin, as it joins the scar at his eye and the blood in his throat to mark him as Leo’s inside and out, a physical representation of the obedience carved into his very soul. But there are other details, too, elements Niles hadn’t considered, hadn’t thought to frame in his imagination, in the details of his fantasies: the sound of Leo’s clothes settling under the flex of Niles’s fingers, or the shift of his golden hair falling forward against Niles’s forehead. The heat of his breathing spilling over Niles’s cheek, the flex of his fingers at Niles’s face; the quiver at his mouth, the catch of sound in his throat, as if he is as undone by this moment of contact as Niles is, as if his own awareness is unravelling as rapidly as Niles’s own. Niles’s mind is whirling, his blood racing to heat in his veins even as it warms him with the languid satisfaction of relief; and there’s none of his usual resistance left to him, nothing to stop his hands from sliding up and back, tracing out the curve of Leo’s body with the simplicity of instinct, with the reality of a hundred fantasies, of a thousand idle daydreams. Niles’s fingers fit against Leo’s coat, his palm presses against the dip of the other’s spine; and Leo shifts closer, arching in against Niles’s chest and the rumple of his half-done shirt as he presses nearer, as his lips part to urge Niles into more. Niles turns his head up, surrendering to Leo in this as in all things, and it’s Leo who touches his tongue to Niles’s lips, who tastes against the give of the other’s mouth as if he’s sampling a glass of wine. Niles’s throat tightens, his breath spills from him into a moan against Leo’s mouth, and he can feel the other’s fingers tighten against his skin, can feel the shift of Leo’s grip brace him in place before the other draws back to gasp a breath just over Niles’s mouth.

“ _Oh_ ,” Niles says; except it’s not speech at his lips, it’s a whimper, a groan, some measure of unvoiced heat spilling forth from him now in answer to Leo’s touch, in response to the demand of Leo’s body against his, Leo’s fingers at his skin, Leo’s lips weighting against his own. “My lord.”

Niles can hear the sound of Leo swallowing, they’re so near. “Do you intend to keep all the pleasure to yourself?” he asks, with something approximating his usual chill but drawn down into such shadows that the words sound more like a seduction than anything else, that Niles can feel them course down his spine and knot in his stomach with desire long since become a familiar bedfellow to him in the years since he came to the palace. “Or is it an order you’re waiting for? I hadn’t expected shyness from you, of all people.”

Niles can feel his face heat, can feel his skin coming alight as much with arousal stirring itself back into his body as the uncertainty Leo accuses him of. He presses his lips together tight and shakes his head in rejection of Leo’s suggestion, the movement clear but gentle enough not to dislodge the fingers framing his face, the idle hold bracing him where he sits. “It’s not...not shyness.”

“I see.” Leo is gazing down at Niles, his eyes unfathomable, his expression distant. He looks like a god, like some divine being offering his momentary attention to an intriguing mortal, caprice catching the flicker of his gaze to linger for a moment on the figure before him. Niles wants to offer worship, if he had anything left to offer worthy of that regal perfection. Leo’s head tilts to the side very slightly. “Disinterest, then?”

“ _No_ ,” Niles groans, too fast and too loud; but the suggestion is so wrong, the impossibility of it too much for him to bear in silence. His hands tighten on Leo’s clothes, his hips come up in spite of his pleasure-spent softness; his breathing spills from him in a moan enough, he thinks, to refute Leo’s suggestion entire. “Never.”

Leo’s lashes flutter. “Then what are you waiting for?”

Niles shuts his eye and tips his head back against the wall as he swallows, as he collects words to coherency at his lips. “ _Permission_.”

Niles can feel the rush of Leo’s breath over his mouth, can feel the guest of an exhale that suggests the beginning of a laugh without the sound to fully grant it shape. Leo’s fingers shift at Niles’s skin, his palms sliding in and back to push through the weight of the other’s hair; when he leans forward Niles can feel the motion against his lap, can feel the burden of Leo’s weight pinning him in place tipping forward against his chest instead as those fingers slide back into his hair, as Leo’s breathing runs to shadow against his mouth.

“Well then,” Leo says; and his mouth skims Niles’s, his lips catching the faintest hint of friction against the other’s skin. “I grant you free reign in this.” His hips shift over Niles’s thighs, his body rocks forward; for a brief, breathless moment Niles can feel the strain in Leo’s body pressing against him, can feel the heat of the other’s blood burning right through the rumple of his clothes and the weight of Leo’s at one and the same time. “You may do as you like with me.”

Niles’s fingers shift, his hands flexing of their own accord to dig in at Leo’s hips, to bear down against pale skin with desperate strength. When he opens his eye it’s only barely, just enough to give Leo the full shadowed force of his attention. “Are you certain of that, my lord?”

Leo’s smile is sultry, like it’s being pulled from the depths of the shadows the other winds around his fingertips like playthings, like they’re just another variety of the toy Niles has made of himself since his redemption. “I am,” Leo says, and curves in to tilt his shoulders forward and catch Niles between the wall behind him and the shape of Leo before him. “Show me your devotion, Niles.”

Niles doesn’t wait for more. It’s impossible, it’s too much, it’s a gift more grand than anything he has ever deserved, now least of all; but he’s greedy in all things, his fingers itch with the desire to seize for more than his fair share, and what Leo’s command has held him from before is offered to him, now, more than he dared to let himself truly hope for, more than he can let himself refuse now. He lifts his chin the extra inch, rising from the wall behind him to crush his upturned mouth to the part of Leo’s lips; and he doesn’t stop, this time, when Leo’s throat works over a groan no less heated for how soft the sound is. Niles tips his head, angling for more as Leo’s fingers snake through his hair, pushing the weight of it off his face and pinning him still at one and the same time; but that just leaves Niles’s hands free, and they are sliding over Leo’s body and the give of the other’s clothes as fast as Niles can map them. There are fastenings, to be sure, buttons and laces and all manner of details intended to keep the elegant clothing over Leo’s body, to keep the pale of his skin hidden from the weight of lecherous stares; but Niles has thought of this, in the quiet of his own room, and his lack of hands-on experience is no burden to him now. He knows the alignment of the buttons on Leo’s jacket, knows the way the shining curves of them hold the weight of embroidered brocade close to the other’s shoulders; he knows how the loose fall of the other’s shirt fits in against the tight line of his waistband clinging to his hips. The coat comes open, the shirt tugs loose; and Niles is reaching at once, sliding a hand up and against the smooth dip of Leo’s spine to pin his skin close to the other’s as quickly as his other fingers slide down between the span of his chest and the flat of Leo’s stomach to catch at the laces of the other’s pants. Leo hisses at the touch of Niles’s fingers on his skin, his mouth coming open and drawing away from Niles’s for a moment of reaction; but Niles just follows him, lifting his head and pushing in closer to reclaim the heat of the other’s mouth while he catches his fingertips into the loops of the knots at Leo’s pants and unwinds them from each other to ease the strain of the fabric against the other’s body. Leo’s fingers tighten in his hair, Leo’s back flexes under his touch; and then he’s drawing back again, pulling away by inches to huff into a laugh that Niles can feel spill over his lips like water, like wine, like the intoxicating heat of royal blood from the goblet that granted him this new-made life.

“You’re quick with your hands,” Leo tells him. “I suppose I should have expected as much, given your history.”

“Light fingers kept me alive, before,” Niles says; except his breathing is coming too hard, and the words come out panting, desperate, shaky over the shadows in his throat. “My dexterity will leave you breathless.”

Leo’s eyebrows jump up, his mouth tightens at the corner. “Will it,” he says.

Niles ducks his chin. “Yes,” he says, “I swear it” and Leo’s pants come undone under his touch and he’s sliding in and down, fitting the span of his fingers under the weight of the other’s waistband to drag hot over the soft of Leo’s stomach, over the delicate skin taut against his hipbone. Leo’s head drops forward, his lips part on a soundless huff of air; and then Niles is touching him, his fingertips pressing to slide down over hot-flushed skin, and Niles is the one moaning, this time, as desperation wins out over elegance to push his fingers in hard, to curl his palm in against the heat of Leo’s length against his palm. Leo is hot as flame, the heat of him all but scorching against the texture of Niles’s hand on him; but it’s a painless burn, a brand as desperately desired as Niles carries the line of that scar across his missing eye. Niles’s heart is pounding, his breathing is catching on disbelief in his chest; and somewhere, beyond the too-much sensation and the burn trembling up his spine and the sound of Leo’s gasping inhales in the air, some part of Niles is memorizing all of this, his recollection reaching to clutch and cling to the impossible reality of this moment for all the nights this will seem an illusion.

Neither of them speak for long moments. Leo seems too occupied with the catch of his breathing, too tangled in the pace of his inhales and the hiss of air that spills past his teeth with every shift of Niles’s hand; and Niles can’t recall the shape of words, can’t even find the outline of the teasing he so regularly offers and never expected to follow through on. So he’s silent, his head tipped up and his gaze fixed on Leo’s face, and he can feel adoration in every line of his expression and he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, there is no space for self-conscious restraint when he has Leo here against him, his thighs flexing and his hips moving and his cock sliding hot against the dip of Niles’s palm. Niles has spent so long holding himself back, ducking his head and flashing a smile and hiding his feelings, hiding the edge of sincerity that always rides all those off-hand suggestions; it’s intoxicating to be set free of that at last, to be able to let his gaze go soft and his breathing come hard and just  _stare_  at the impossible, ideal perfection that is Leo against him. He doesn’t notice his own cock stirring back towards heat, doesn’t realize appreciation and arousal have taken joint control of his body; he doesn’t even hear the increasing speed of Leo’s breathing, doesn’t feel the tremor in the thighs pressing close to his to speak to the other’s ascension towards some unexplored height of pleasure. Niles thinks he could stay like this forever, with Leo atop him and his fingers sliding under the other’s clothes and his whole world coming undone and remade with every breath he manages; and then Leo gasps with some desperation, and curls in so far over Niles that his head bumps the wall over the other’s shoulders, and he says, “Is this as far as your desires go?” with an admirable attempt at calm on the words.

Niles’s breath rushes out of him on shock, his forehead creases on confusion as his steady rhythm against Leo stalls and stops. “My lord?”

Leo ducks his head and shuts his eyes; Niles can see the effort it costs him to collect himself, can almost watch the flush of heat ease back from the other’s cheeks as Leo swallows to bring himself back to clarity by force of will. It’s arousing to see all by itself, just that demonstration of the other’s iron will even over his own physical responses; it makes Niles’s cock swell the hotter, urges him back towards open desire faster than he has ever been able to achieve alone.

“You’ve proven your skill with your hands,” Leo says, still with his eyes shut; Niles can see the tension in the other’s body against the shift of his lips, even if he can’t hear it under the smooth silk of that tone. “Is that the extent of your intention?” Leo’s lashes flutter, his eyes open to gaze down at Niles before him; when he straightens from his forward lean it’s with a measure of grace appropriate for a ballroom in his father’s palace as much as to the corner of his retainer’s bedroom. “I would have expected somewhat more invention out of your imagination.”

Niles presses his lips tight together as his cheeks burn with self-consciousness, as his body flares to heat just at the implication of Leo’s words. “My lord, I…” He stalls himself to silence, his lips still parted over words he doesn’t know how to form; and finally he ducks his head, offering capitulation as the best he can make of himself under the circumstances. “I wouldn’t want to overstep my bounds.”

Leo’s sigh is heavy in the humid air. “I told you already,” he says; and his fingers pull through Niles’s hair, his touch dragging until Niles’s head raises to the pull, until Niles lifts his shadowed gaze to meet Leo’s direct stare. “Must I repeat myself to gain your obedience, Niles?”

Niles shakes his head without blinking. “No, my lord.”

Leo’s fingers tighten. “Very well,” he says; and when he pulls to drag Niles’s head back his hips come forward too, his whole body cresting forward so sharply that he pushes Niles’s hand back to pin between them, to catch the friction against his own hips and Niles’s stomach. Niles groans at the pressure, at the feel of Leo’s thighs flexing and pressing against the swell of his cock, and over him Leo huffs a breath and moves again, grinding himself in and down to press his own length close against Niles’s. “Then show me what you want of me.”

Niles whimpers, the heat in him too much to hold back, too impossible to restrain; but his hands are moving anyway, his body acting in response to Leo’s demands more than his own. His palm against the other’s back slides away, his fingers catch at the waistband of Leo’s half-undone pants; Leo hisses an inhale, the sound heat and surprise at once, but Niles doesn’t flinch back, this time, not when he has Leo’s command yet ringing in his ears. He pulls instead, dragging Leo’s clothing down and free of his hips to bare him from the trailing hem of his shirt to halfway down the pale flex of his thighs; and then, at once, while Leo is still catching over an inhale and tightening his fingers in Niles’s hair, he’s reaching down and back, leaving the other’s clothing where it is to slide between Leo’s thighs instead, to fit his fingers into the gap between the other’s legs and around behind him as his other hand draws in to tighten to a grip around the length of Leo’s cock. Leo’s hips jerk up, Leo bucks up against the weight of Niles’s hold on him, and Niles groans far down in the depths of his throat, spilling heat past his lips as Leo’s fingers fist into his hair and his own slide back to skim against the delicate skin at the other’s entrance.

“Here,” he says, his voice dropping so low he barely recognizes the word at his lips. “This is what I want.” His fingertips press, his touch drags; he can feel the way Leo tenses against the promise of the friction, can feel the involuntary strain in the other’s body answering the traction of bowstring calluses dragging into intimate heat. “My lord.”

Niles is so near he can hear the way Leo swallows, can hear the effort of the action in the other’s throat. “Yes,” he says; and Niles has to shut his eye at that, has to duck his head and gasp a breath at the impossibility of it, at the unreality of Leo here, half-dressed and straddling his lap and with his body trembling at the point of surrender to Niles’s touch, to Niles’s heat, to Niles’s… “Show me.”

Niles presses his lips together and ducks his head in to press his forehead against Leo’s chest. He can hear the sound of the other’s heart thudding against his ribcage, imagines he can taste the vibration in the air against his lips. “I need oil,” he says, the words like a plea, a protest against the impossibility of what Leo is offering him, of the conclusion Niles aches for with the whole of his body even as some part of him resists the irrationality of it. “I’ll hurt you, without it.”

“I see,” Leo says; and then his fingers are sliding free of Niles’s hair and his hand is pushing hard at Niles’s shoulder as he unfolds to his feet, pulling away from the other’s touch without so much as batting at eye at the loss. His pants slide farther down his legs, tangling around his knees as his shirt and jacket hang loose from his shoulders; but Leo doesn’t hesitate over the display he’s making of himself, even when Niles opens his eye and lifts his head to stare up at him. He pushes at the weight of his pants to slide them down his legs, to let them puddle around his ankles while he toes off the weight of one boot and then the other; the clothing is all kicked aside from there, shoved carelessly into a heap soon added to by the weight of Leo’s jacket, and then Leo is lifting his head, tilting his hair back into the light as he looks down the line of his nose at Niles beneath him, rumpled and sticky and flushed hard with renewed arousal.

“You look to be ready enough,” Leo says, balancing on one foot so he can bump against the swell of Niles’s cock with his toes; Niles’s hips jerk, his body cresting up at the same time a moan spills from his throat, and Leo’s mouth twists on a smile where he’s looking down at Niles beneath him. “Where’s the oil?”

Niles tips his head back against the wall behind him; he wants to shut his eye, wants to take a moment to breathe in the taste of this reality, the moment of this truth, but he can’t tear his attention away from Leo as the other steadies his feet on the floor and begins to unfasten the buttons holding his silk shirt close over his chest. “The bed,” Niles manages, his voice working for him as his gaze slides down, drawn inexorably by the elegant flex of Leo’s fingers on his clothes; he lifts a hand to his face, pushing hard against his skin as he gasps over a breath. “There’s a bottle on the table by the bed.”

“Good,” Leo says; or purrs, rather, as his voice recoups some measure of the regal bearing he usually has. “Stay there.” And he’s turning, careless of the focus of Niles’s attention on him as he paces away across the room on bare feet and with nothing but the fall of his shirt to cover him. Niles stares after him -- he can hardly help it, when Leo is making such a picture of himself -- wondering if Leo has always had such a sway to his hips, if his legs have always been so long and pale under the weight of his clothes. He wonders if he’ll think of this forever, if this will be burned into his memory whenever he looks at Leo from now on; and he can’t find it in him to mind, can’t find the space in his thoughts to eschew the possibility. He just stares, drinking in Leo’s appearance the way the other’s hair drinks in the gold of the candlelight; and then Leo is coming back, turning to pad across the floor with a bottle in his hand and his shirt undone all down the front, and Niles can’t think of anything to voice but a whimper as he reaches up and out to offer a beggar’s hands in plea to his prince. Leo hands him the bottle without hesitating, almost without pausing, and as Niles brings it in to open the lid and spill slick over his hand Leo is folding himself back to the floor, dropping to his knees as he returns to straddle Niles’s thighs, to slide in close and replace his fingers in the other’s hair. Niles lets his head be drawn back, lets his vision swing up to meet Leo’s steady gaze, and Leo hums far in the back of his throat and pushes into Niles’s hair, running his fingers through the pale locks as Niles sets the bottle aside without looking and reaches to brace himself at Leo’s hip.

“This,” Leo says, his voice smooth, his gaze clear. The light catches at his skin, the shadows of his shirt haze across the lines of his chest; Niles’s fingers are sliding between his thighs, pressing up and back to work around to their goal, to print their mark to intimacy against the shadowed spaces of Leo’s body. “Is this what you wanted, Niles?”

Niles presses his lips together and swallows hard. “Yes,” he drags out from the depths of his chest. “You are.” His fingers slide, pressure bearing down at Leo’s body, and Leo’s lashes dip, his lips part, and he eases to the force, tension giving way to surrender as Niles’s touch slides up and into him. Niles can feel his throat tense, can feel emotion surging to choke him with almost-tears at this: the reality of this, the heat of this, the fact of this moment as he pushes up and into the shadows within Leo’s body. Leo shudders against him, his hands tighten and ease in Niles’s hair, and when Niles takes a breath it catches in his throat, tripping over itself to strain into something halfway between a moan and a sob.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, and he has to blink hard to keep his vision clear, to keep his eyes in focus on Leo leaning over him. “You’re--” and he has to stop, he doesn’t have words for this, for the feel of Leo opening to the pressure of his touch, for the pull of Leo’s fingers in his hair, for the tremors of sensation thrumming through the body pressing so close to his own. It’s Niles’s fingers on Leo’s body, Niles’s touch that is sliding into the shadowed spaces of the other’s existence; but Niles feels as if he’s the one coming undone, as if it’s his own long-held restraint that is opening and offering itself to the open catch of Leo’s elegant fingers against him. He wants to shut his eye, wants to duck away into the relief of darkness; but Leo is leaning over him, his lashes heavy and shadowed at his cheeks and his lips parted on tremors of unvoiced sensation, and Niles can’t remember how to blink, can barely remember how to breathe for the effect of watching Leo over him. His touch slides deeper, his finger works in against the tension of Leo’s body; and over him Leo sighs, and tilts his hips, and Niles groans at the feel of the other’s motion working around him.

“Niles,” Leo says, his voice hot, low, purring in his chest and past the flush of his lips. His knees tighten against Niles’s hips, his balance shifts in and back as he rocks himself against the resistance of the other’s touch. “You want me?” It’s almost a statement, almost a declaration; it’s only the catch of an inhale at the end that swings it up, and that so sharp Niles isn’t sure if it’s a question or the heat of the friction between them that pulls the sound from Leo’s lips. It doesn’t matter, in any case; it’s a guide, a suggestion even if it’s not an order, and Niles gasps a breath and tightens his hold on Leo’s hip.

“Yes,” he says; and he pushes up, hard, punctuating the agreement with the force of his arm enough to thrust his touch as far into Leo as he can reach. Leo’s head goes back, his throat pulls over a gusting exhale, and Niles draws his hand back, easing away for a moment only so he can push back up again, can feel the give of Leo’s body flexing and shuddering around his touch as he works the other open with the beginning of a rhythm, with the start of something bearing intent beyond careful easing. “ _Yes_.” Niles’s shoulders weight at the wall behind him, his head goes back to press to the support, and he lets himself go slack, lets himself relax into the reality of this moment, of his touch sliding up and into Leo’s body, of desire rolling through his veins like thunder on a distant horizon, of Leo’s fingers twisting and pulling at his hair with involuntary strength.

“I’ve wanted you since I saw you,” Niles confesses; and it is a confession, as if Leo is a priest and not a prince, as if the action of Niles’s finger working in the other is a penitence instead of a flare of heat in the depths of his stomach, in the swell of his cock. “When you came down that hallway with your shadows around you like a cloak and your eyes snapping with power--” He groans, his hips bucking up to evoke the feeling better than his words can. “I thought I might come before my knees hit the floor.”

“You  _are_  a pervert,” Leo tells him; but it’s approving, it’s amused, his knees are sliding open on the floor and his hips are tilting down to meet Niles’s fingers. “Do you mean all those things you say?”

“Yes,” Niles says at once. He draws his touch back to press against Leo with a second finger; Leo arches his back forward, looping an arm around Niles’s shoulders to pull the other closer, and Niles pushes up slowly, as slowly as he can make himself move when every part of him is panting with need akin to a man dying of thirst offered a pitcher of rich wine. “I have always meant everything I said, to you.”

“I thought--” Leo starts; and then cuts himself off, leaving whatever he thought unstated. That’s fine; Niles doesn’t need to know, doesn’t need anything more than what Leo is giving him, has already given him, his life and his heart and so much more than he ever hoped to have, than he ever dreamed of claiming. Leo’s fingers slide up, his palm braces at the back of Niles’s head. “Tell me again.”

“I’m yours,” Niles says, at once, letting the words fall with the immediacy of sincerity, letting the rhythm of them fit the slick press of his fingers up and into Leo’s body, the drag of friction he can hear catching to the beginning of pleasure in his prince’s throat. “Mind, soul, body, my lord.” His grip at Leo’s hip loosens, his hand pushes up and under the fall of the other’s shirt instead, rumpling the hem of the fabric up as he spreads his fingers wide over the flex of Leo’s shoulderblades, over the dip of motion as the other’s arms tense and strain. “Anything you wish of me is yours forever.”

Leo’s hand eases from Niles’s hair, his fingers trail over Niles’s shoulder and down to press against the weight of soft fabric over the other’s chest. His palm bears down, his hold flattening over the lines of Niles’s ribcage, over the pounding rhythm of life fluttering in his chest. “And your heart?”

Niles shuts his eye and huffs a laugh against Leo’s chest, rumbling over amusement that tastes like raw desire on his tongue. “You have had that in your hand all this time, my lord.”

Leo’s fingers tighten, just for a moment, his hand flexing against Niles’s chest. “Enough,” he says, and he’s pulling up and away, drawing free of the other’s fingers before Niles has yet collected himself enough to ease them loose. Leo doesn’t wait for Niles to collect himself; he’s rocking in instead, tipping his legs open and sliding his knees close to the wall, until his chest is pressing close against Niles’s, until their hips are aligned almost atop one another. Niles can’t breathe, can’t catch his breath and can’t slow the pounding of his heart; but he’s reaching down anyway, dropping his oil-slick hand to curl around the heat of his cock and stroke wet up and over it. Leo’s hand tightens in his hair, Niles lets his grip slide down to brace himself steady; and then Leo starts to lower his weight, and Niles’s whole attention is given over to the complexities of aligning their bodies to fit together. There’s disbelief in him, shock still white and hot in the back of his thoughts; but Leo is moving, Niles’s cock is hard and slick in his hand, and then there’s pressure, the slide of Leo urging down against him, and it’s all Niles can do to keep breathing, to keep his heart beating against the surge of desire that hits him. This can’t be happening, this cannot be reality, he cannot be...and then Leo huffs an exhale, and eases further, and Niles feels himself sliding up and into Leo over him, feels Leo’s body tensing and hot around him. He lets himself go, reaching on instinct to clutch at Leo’s hip instead, to try to brace the other in place against the surge of sensation that seizes the whole of him; but Leo just keeps moving, as Niles pants and trembles and shakes with the feel of it, lowering his weight until his thighs press flush against Niles’s pants, until their shoulders are nearly level. He pauses for a moment -- enough time for Niles to gasp a breath, enough time for Niles to feel the sensation of it, of the whole length of his cock sheathed inside the give of Leo’s body -- and then Leo rocks his weight back up, lifting himself to fuck back down against Niles’s length, and Niles hears himself groan so sharp and bright on heat it’s akin to a yelp.

“Niles,” Leo says, almost but not quite a question; but Niles is already answering, is already offering “ _Leo_ ” in a tone broken over on heat that more than refutes whatever concern the other might have had. Leo huffs an exhale, understanding audible in the sound; and then he’s leaning forward, pressing himself in close against Niles’s chest, and Niles is pulling Leo in against him, fitting his forearm close against the other’s back to hold him as near as they can be. Leo is still moving, is still rocking himself in and down to move over Niles’s length, to draw himself over the heat of the other’s cock; but Niles can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but gasp against Leo’s chest and feel devotion pour over his lips, incoherence turned to liquid heat that means as much as clarity might. It’s Leo’s name, over and over again; not his title, not his formal address, not the possessive  _my lord_ that Niles lingers over to savour the taste of on his tongue. Just  _Leo_ , repeated like a mantra, like Niles has never said it before; broken and pleading and desperate, as desperate as the tremor in his arm and the pant of his breathing. And Leo keeps moving; keeps his hold on Niles’s shoulders, and keeps the rhythm of his motion, and keeps working over the other, pulling those words from his lips and that whimper from his chest and undoing him with every motion, with every heartbeat. Niles has to struggle into thinking of reciprocation, into recalling the need to loosen his deathgrip on Leo’s hip enough to reach in and between the flex of his chest and the flat of Leo’s stomach; but then his fingertips press against hot resistance, and Leo’s whole body goes taut, his breathing giving way to a groan so dark with desperation that Niles can feel the heat of it prickle in the tips of his fingers and curling in his toes still caught in the weight of his boots. He wraps his fingers into a grip, strokes up with inelegant haste over the other’s length; and it’s then that the world gives way, that even the span of the room around them flickers out of importance. Niles can feel his own body straining, can feel the ache of building pressure in his balls as he approaches his second orgasm of the night, as arousal triumphs over the bone-deep exhaustion he’s been pulling himself through; but that’s fading, that’s not important, even the dizzy gasp of his breathing is falling away. It’s all Leo, it’s only Leo: the quiver in his thighs, the pull of his fingers, the rising pitch of his gasping as Niles’s grip strokes up and over him, as he keeps rocking back to take the force of the other’s cock into himself. Niles can taste Leo’s pleasure in the air, can breathe it into his lungs like smoke; and he wants to never leave this moment, wants this impossibility to last forever. Leo is against him, his arms tensing about Niles’s neck, his legs shaking with the strain building in his body; and then Niles’s fingers slide, his thumb presses in against the head of Leo’s cock in his hold, and Leo arches back, and cries out “ _Niles_ ” in a voice like dusk, and Niles can feel his experience of the world open up, unfolding into a perfection he didn’t know existed, hadn’t ever thought could be real. His skin is slick with sweat, his breathing is stalling on heat, his whole body aches with strain; and Leo is coming against him, around him, his whole body quivering with long tremors of pleasure that Niles can feel thrum down his spine like consecutive bolts of lightning unfastening him from the world. Niles can’t breathe, he can’t think, everything is Leo, everything is brilliant shadows and endless heat, and for the first instant of time all he can do is moan, is offer the air from his lungs as an insufficient recompense for the experience he has just received. Niles’s head is spinning, he can’t ease his grip and can’t think to move and can’t collect himself back into himself; and then Leo’s body eases, and Leo shudders a sigh, and he’s curling back in, tipping himself forward over Niles beneath him.

“Niles,” Leo says; and his voice is a religion in itself, the lilting grace of a god, or an angel, or just himself, cast into golden heat by the pleasure in him. His hips shift, his body rocks up to resume his rhythm but slower, heavier, weighted by his own satisfaction; and Niles’s lashes flutter as his chest tenses, as breath sweeps away from his lips. He can feel the knot of arousal in his stomach, can feel the strain still clinging to his legs, arms, shoulders; if he opens his eye and looks down he can see his fingers fisted around Leo’s still-flushed cock, can see the spill of the other’s come like pearls over his fingers. Niles’s hips jerk, his breath tears free on a whine; and then Leo’s fingers fist in his hair, there’s a pull against his scalp, and Niles’s head is tilting back, urged up and against the wall by the force of Leo’s hold.

“Look at me,” Leo says; orders, this time, there’s no room for refusal behind those words. His eyes are dark, his mouth is soft with the remnants of his own orgasm; he’s looking at Niles like there’s no one and nothing else in the world. Niles stares up at him, feeling his body tremoring with helpless jolts of anticipation, with expectation hot and desperate in him; and Leo leans in over him, tipping closer until his mouth is almost against Niles’s, until his pleasure-soft breathing is hot at Niles’s lips.

“I want to see you come for me,” he says; and Niles can feel his whole expression go slack, can feel everything in his body give way to surrender as if Leo’s words were an order and not a request. His cock twitches, a single, sharp pull of heat; and Leo rocks back and onto him, and Niles comes, his thighs tensing with convulsive jolts of heat as his breath sticks in his chest, as his exhales turn inside-out into helpless, quivering moans. Leo keeps moving, keeps riding Niles through the force of his orgasm and past it, into aftershocks Niles can feel in his fingertips, can see like white light flashing over his vision; until finally all he can do is fall back against the wall behind him, panting and trembling heat through every fiber of his body under Leo’s. Leo keeps moving for a moment, like he’s savoring the feel of Niles still inside him; and then finally he goes still, letting himself relax down against the other’s lap, and tips forward to wind both arms close around Niles’s neck. Niles eases his hold on Leo’s length, and shuts his eye to the distraction of his vision, and lets everything around him drift out of importance in the face of the reality of pleasure in his veins, and Leo breathing soft against his neck, and the sweat-glow of the other’s skin warm under his palms.

Niles can feel Leo take a breath better than he can hear it, with how near the other’s lips are to his skin. Leo’s fingers ease from the back of his neck, the other’s hand draws up to touch against Niles’s forehead; the angle of his palm shadows over Niles’s missing eye, the mark of their first meeting branded with such clarity on Niles’s body.

“I’m glad,” Leo says; and his fingers trail down, his touch brushing just against the texture of Niles’s scar like he’s admiring the shape of his own handiwork. “I’m glad that I chose you.”

Niles isn’t sure what Leo is talking about; if he means the past, that moment when the shadows in his gaze shifted from judgment to mercy, or when he offered Niles the title of  _retainer_ , the place in the world Niles had never known to have before. Or maybe he means right now; maybe he means the heat of their bodies, the catch of sweat between them to mark out this first time, this time Niles can hardly dare to hope might not be the last. Maybe Leo means all of it, all together: the mercy and the loyalty and the desire all at once, as they have always been together in everything Niles has ever offered to the other.

Niles turns his head, tipping in to meet the weight of Leo’s fingers at his skin, and when he speaks his lips draw just against the inside line of the other’s arm. “My lord.” It’s not an answer; but then, Leo’s words weren’t a question, either, and from the huff of air Leo hums against Niles’s neck it’s good enough. Niles turns his head in towards Leo’s mouth, opening his eye enough to blink shadows at the curve of Leo’s lips; and Leo’s hand sinks into his hair to hold him still while the other ducks in to kiss against the ragged edge of Niles’s breathing.

Niles has never been so grateful.


End file.
